Modi govt’s first oilfields auction: 42 companies submit 134 bids

The bid round took place in a challenging global market environment when the oil and gas prices were volatile and the investment in the exploration and production sector has seen substantial decline, upstream regulator Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) said.

New Delhi: The bidding round for Modi government’s first oilfields auction concluded today with 42 companies submitting 134 bids for development of 34 oil and gas discoveries. The bidding round witnessed participation from five foreign firms, 32 Indian private companies and five state-owned PSUs.

The oil ministry said the response from investors was “favorable” despite challenging global environment. According to upstream regulator Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), the bid round took place in a challenging global market environment when the oil and gas prices were volatile and the investment in the exploration and production sector has seen substantial decline.

“Despite the above challenges, the response to Discovered Small Fields Bid round has been very favorable and exceeded expectations of all experts. It has not only attracted the interest of the oil & gas companies but also attracted the interest of the first time investors in the E&P sector,” DGH said in a statement.

However, large oil and gas companies including the state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) and also Reliance Industries (RIL) and BP skipped the auction. Of the total 134 e-bids received, 120 e-bids were received for onland areas and 14 e-bids were received for offshore areas.

As many as 67 idle discoveries, primarily of ONGC, were clubbed to form 46 fields for offer in the auction. Of these, 26 are on-land, 18 shallow water and 2 deepwater fields. The fields hold in-place reserves of 48 million tonne of oil and over 38 billion cubic metres of gas reserves, worth Rs 70,000 crore at current prices.

“The response has been overwhelming as compared to the last round of E&P auctions under the NELP regime in 2009-10, largely credited to the new policy reforms which have improved ease of doing business by introducing a transparent regulatory framework. Despite smaller contract areas on offer, the response from private companies was overwhelming; around 37 private sector players submitted e-bids as against 27 private companies during the NELP-IX,” the DGH said.

Also, the response to onland contract areas was better as compared to offshore contract area. All the 26 onland contract areas received e-bids while 8 of the 20 offshore contract areas have received e-bids. The technical bid documents were today opened at the DGH’s Noida office in the presence of bidders. The ministry said the evaluation of the bids would be undertaken in a time bound manner and it is expected that the contract areas would be awarded expeditiously.